BATON ROUGE (AP) — Six Chinese dairy professionals are winding up a two-week training program at the LSU AgCenter in Baton Rouge.
They're here to learn new technologies, ideas and ingredients they can introduce back home, said Jun Wang, a Beijing-based marketing specialist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agriculture Service.
The Chinese don't consume as much dairy products as Americans, but the industry has been growing rapidly in the past 20 years, said Wang.
"Food industry has been a star industry in China over the past 20 to 30 years," Wang said. "Even though China's economy is slowing down right now, food as a sector remains to be very, very strong and developing very fast. There is an increase of China's disposal income and people's pursuit of healthier foods."
The group came to Louisiana on Sept. 12 with the USDA's Cochran Fellowship Program, which teaches foreign officials and professionals about U.S. regulations and technologies. They'll be leaving Saturday.
They also made a three-day side trip to Chicago for the International Dairy Show from Sept. 15-18.
The fellows all work in manufacturing, trade, or research and development at Chinese dairy companies.
One focus is food safety: It's important for the fellows to become comfortable with U.S. inspections, regulations and traceability protocols to facilitate trade, said Kayanush Aryana, an AgCenter dairy foods technology researcher who led several of the training sessions.
